Milk Run (Smuggler's Tales From The Golden Age Of The Solar Clipper Book 1)

by Nathan Lowell

  Natalya flipped to the Burleson control screen and started charging the jump capacitors. “Ten ticks until we can jump.”

  “Eleven until we’re in position,” Zoya said. “Nine until the missiles get here. We’re not going to make it.”

  Natalya brought up the engineering overlay and toggled in the maintenance menus. She gritted her teeth and pulled the safety overrides off the engines. “We’re going to be damn near dry on fuel before we get out of here, but if we don’t get out, fuel won’t matter.”

  The vibration and noise picked up a fraction.

  “What’d you do?” Zoya shouted.

  “Reset the overrides and goosed the fuel pumps. It’s not much but it might be enough.”

  They watched the computers recalculate courses and trajectories. The missiles missed the velocity shift for a few seconds before coming to a new intercept.

  “Ten ticks until they hit us,” Zoya shouted. “Just under eleven to the limit. That jink bought us a fraction.”

  Natalya watched the scanner plot and tried to think of something else they could do. “This isn’t right,” she said.

  “What?”

  “This isn’t right,” she shouted. “Something is just not right here.”

  “With the ship?” Zoya’s eyes grew even wider.

  “No. This whole thing. Why are they trying to kill us?”

  “You killed a TIC officer. They don’t really like that, you know.”

  “But I didn’t. Any competent forensics analysis should prove that.”

  Zoya pointed at the screen. “They don’t look like they believe that.”

  Natalya looked at Zoya’s screen again. The interceptors seemed to be falling back.

  “Five ticks, Nats. What can we do?”

  Natalya pulled up the Burleson drive overlay. The capacitor had enough charge for a very short jump—barely a bump in the road by interstellar standards, but it might be enough. She slapped keys and dragged the navigation interface onto her console. She zoomed the chart in on the edge of Newmar’s boundary. “Check long range. Dead ahead. Push the range all the way up,” she shouted. Her fingers kept moving on the keyboard and the navigational computer began the calculations to take her to the point she had marked on the chart.

  “Nothing out there for a billion klicks that I can see right now,” Zoya shouted. “What are you doing?”

  “Saving our asses,” she shouted back and punched the jump button.

  Nothing seemed to happen but she reached forward and pulled the throttles back to zero. The screaming, roaring vibration chopped off. “Where are the missiles now?”

  Zoya looked down at her screen and shook her head. “Gone. Or so far back in relativistic terms we won’t see them for another few ticks.” She brought her own screen up to a navigational plot and started running her own scans. “You jumped to the edge of the system?”

  “About a hundredth of a Burleson unit.”

  “You could have killed us.”

  “We were dead if I didn’t.”

  Zoya turned back to look at the scanners. “I can’t even see the interceptors, let alone the missiles at this range.”

  “They’re really small targets a very, very long way off.”

  Zoya looked out the forward ports and adjusted her display. “You jumped into the outbound heavy freighter lane.”

  “It was the only place I could think of that might be clean enough for us to jump to.”

  “What if there’d been a ship?” Zoya asked, incredulity leaving her voice squeaky.

  “You’d have seen it on long range. They’re moving fast by the time they get out here, but you’d have seen where it had been. You didn’t see anything. I jumped us. The odds of actually hitting a ship out here are stupidly low. We had a better chance of hitting a stray rock where we were.”

  They sat there, the tiny ship still racing toward the Deep Dark at a breakneck pace.

  “Now what?” Zoya asked.

  “How far are we from Dark Knight?”

  “Twelve, maybe thirteen BUs.”

  “So one good jump.”

  “You weren’t joking about the legs on this ship?”

  Natalya shook her head. “No. It was built for exploration in the uncharted areas of the Deep Dark. I wouldn’t want to jump blind into a system but the old timers used to cross this whole region in a matter of a few days, not months.”

  Zoya brought up the charts for the Deep Dark around their destination coordinates. “Not much to see.”

  “The Confederated Planets Joint Committee on Trade doesn’t recognize Toe-Hold space on their charts. The station’s there.”

  Zoya looked at Natalya. “How do you know it’s there?”

  “If Margaret Newmar says that’s where it is, that’s where it is. When we get there, we can probably get the updated Toe-Hold charts.”

  Zoya’s eyes narrowed. “Probably?”

  “Well, we’d need to find somebody there who’d be willing to let us have a set. We’d probably have to pay for it. Somehow.” Natalya shrugged.

  “Somehow?” Zoya’s eyes blinked rapidly. “Somehow? You’re not filling me with confidence here.”

  “Relax. We’re going to Toe-Hold space. As long as we don’t run up against any of the Iron Mountain trolls, we’ll be all right. May have to work for our suppers, that’s all.”

  “Doing what?”

  Natalya shrugged a shoulder. “Depends on what needs doing. Mining, probably. Maybe need to take a couple cruises on a freighter. We could probably make a decent living out here just using the gas skimmers on this ship.”

  “Gas skimmers?”

  Natalya sighed. “How do you think these boats kept themselves in volatiles?”

  Zoya shook her head. “I guess I never really thought about it.”

  “Never mind. We need to get back on track and get out of Newmar before TIC realizes where we are. Plot us a new course for a jump to Dark Knight Station. Who did Margaret say to contact?”

  “A guy named Verk something. Lemme look it up.”

  “Verkol Kondur?”

  Zoya looked up in surprise. “You know him?”

  “Know of him.” Natalya pursed her lips. “My father used to talk about him once in a while.”

  “What? Good? Bad?” Zoya chewed her bottom lip. “What?”

  Natalya chuckled. “Some of each. He wasn’t one of the people Dad warned me about. He either founded or took over Dark Knight. Dad never was clear on it. Interesting that he’s Margaret Newmar’s contact.”

  “So, what will we do there?”

  “Beats me. Get jobs, probably. Toe-Hold space isn’t that different from CPJCT-controlled space.” Natalya shook her head. “If you’d plot that course, you could see for yourself.”

  Zoya bent to her task while Natalya put her ship back together, starting with resetting the overrides. By the time Natalya had satisfied herself that the ship wouldn’t fall apart on her, Zoya had the course adjustment plotted.

  “Pass it to helm?” Natalya said and took the handles.

  “Course passed to helm.”

  “Course locked.” Natalya started the slow burns that would re-orient the ship toward a point in space a long, long way out into the Deep Dark. She locked the autopilot down. “We’ll be in position in two stans. You want that coffee now?”

  Zoya nodded. “Can I ask you a question, Nats?”

  Natalya scrambled up out of her couch. “You’ve never been shy about it before.”

  Zoya chuckled and looked down at her hands. “You were always going to come out to Toe-Hold space after graduation.”

  Natalya shrugged and headed for the galley. “That wasn’t a question.”

  “Alone?”

  “Yeah. Probably.” She finished flash-heating the coffee and took the two cups back to the cockpit. “It’s not the kind of place you can just invite people to, you know?”

  Zoya sipped the hot liquid and closed her eyes for a moment, the steam rising across her fac
e. “I suppose not,” she said after a few moments. “Would you have told me?”

  Natalya sipped her coffee and thought about the question. “You really wanted to join TIC, didn’t you?”

  “Captain Evans made a good case for it.” She sighed. “That was before they tried to kill us.”

  “You know they kept trying to get me to join.”

  Zoya’s eyebrows went up. “Really? You never mentioned it.”

  “I never considered it. I have the Peregrine.” Natalya shrugged. They sipped for a few moments. “Are you sorry?”

  “For what?”

  “That you’ve been linked with a wanted killer and have to give up all your plans for a career?”

  Zoya grinned. “I don’t know yet. When I got up this morning, I thought I knew what I wanted.”

  “Now?”

  Zoya shook her head. “I’m beginning to think I never really thought about it. I just did what I was supposed to do. Now? I don’t know. I don’t know what I want, other than keep flying.”

  “Better to choose a path you’re unsure of than be forced onto a path you don’t want.”

  “Sounds profound. Something your father said?”

  Natalya shook her head. “Fortune cookie I got in a great little oriental restaurant over in Dunsany Roads.”

  Zoya snickered. “How was the food?”

  “Fantastic. If we ever get out that way, I’ll take you.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  “Well, one thing at a time.” Natalya leaned over to look at the display. “You tired? We’ve got a couple of stans before we’re going to jump again.”

  Zoya took a deep breath and looked around the cockpit. “I should be. Something about having missiles locked on my ass seems to have given me a second wind.”

  “Did I ever tell you the time Dad took me out to High Tortuga?”

  “Is this a long story?”

  “Couple of stans. Why? You going somewhere?”

  Zoya grinned and settled into her couch. “What’s High Tortuga?”

  Chapter 4

  Dark Knight: 2363, May 26

  The system primary showed as a tiny disk in the distance. Natalya double-checked the navigation displays and tapped a minor course adjustment into the system before engaging the autopilot for a best-time burn to the station. The engines vibrated the ship with a low-pitched growl. “We’re a little short. It’ll be a day or so before we dock.”

  Zoya stood and peered through the forward armorglass. “There’s nothing out there.”

  “It’s there. Just too far to see without a magnifier or a screen.” She pointed to the navigation display. A flashing blip marked a spot out in the Deep Dark. “Long range shows it just fine.”

  Zoya dropped back into the couch and bit her lip. “Now what?”

  “Now we relax and enjoy the ride. Coffee?”

  Zoya stifled a yawn and shrugged. “It’s that or a nap. I’ve been up way too long.”

  “Why don’t you go stretch out and get some sleep?”

  “You sure? You’ve been up as long as I have.”

  Natalya snickered. “I’m still buzzing. Something about being shot at makes me a little hyper. Lemme take the first watch, and you get some sleep if you can. I’ve got a lot to keep me busy.”

  Zoya rolled out of her couch and shuffled off the bridge. “Holler if you need me.”

  Natalya decided she wanted the coffee even if Zoya hadn’t. She released her belts and stood for the first time in what felt like days. A glance at the chrono on the bulkhead told her that it had barely been four stans since they’d left Newmar with TIC interceptors shooting up their kicker nozzles. She shook out her arms and twisted her shoulders as she crossed the bridge to the compact galley.

  The aromatic coffee beans reminded her of all the times she’d worked on the ship with her father and she wondered what he was doing at that moment. It gave her a small pang of homesickness, knowing she couldn’t go home again. Of course, she’d always planned on moving out to Toe-Hold space after graduation. The current circumstances just pushed her timetable up a few days.

  She filled a mug with fresh coffee, snapped down the lid, and returned to her couch. A few clicks brought up the communications interfaces. She took a couple of ticks to link up the voice headset. Dark Knight traffic control would want to chat at some point.

  She sipped the hot coffee and stared at the slow blink-blink on the long-range scanner. With nothing else to do, her brain replayed the scene in Sifu Newmar’s kitchen—Purvis falling, the blood spreading across the floor, the coldness in her hands and face. She’d had trouble putting enough of her thoughts in order to speak, let alone defend herself.

  Why had Margaret Newmar been so certain TIC would blame her? She and Purvis had a history but nothing that would add up to her killing him. Certainly not in the middle of the graduation party in a room where everybody knew she’d been alone with him.

  She inhaled the warm, dark aroma of coffee and sipped again.

  Why then? And why Zoya? She hadn’t even been in the room at the time. The only connection Zoya had was being Natalya’s roommate for her entire time at the academy. Natalya smiled at the thought that she couldn’t have been all that easy to live with. Most of their classmates had played musical roommates over the four stanyers. Some even played musical bunks, but Zoya hadn’t seemed interested in any of it. Neither of them had enough spare time to get involved sexually or romantically with any of the other cadets. They’d been well matched for their drives toward graduation. With nearly identical grade point averages and widely disparate backgrounds, they made a good team.

  Natalya assumed they had widely disparate backgrounds. Zoya never said much about her family, other than they were back in Dunsany Roads somewhere. Natalya had to admit to herself that she hadn’t talked much about her own history either. Forays into Toe-Hold space with her father didn’t make suitable conversation for polite company. Particularly when that company had any relationship with CPJCT.

  So why was TIC trying to kill them? She leaned forward in her couch and tapped a few keys to replay the log of their encounter with the TIC interceptors. She routed the navigation display to a window on her console and watched. For the longest time, nothing appeared, then the ship jumped to the edge of the system.

  Natalya froze the replay and enlarged the window. She added the time stamp and a text readout window beside the navigational display. As she triggered the replay, she leaned forward to watch the actions scroll up the screen. Her commands to change the ship’s speed and heading registered, but nothing at all showed on the navigational log. As far as the log showed, it was empty space.

  She watched the log recording her system overrides and then the blink of the jump into the outgoing traffic lane. There were no sensor readings at all for the ships, the missile tracks, or the explosions. The logs held no record of missile locks or weapons fire. She watched the recording until all the systems returned to normal, then keyed the window closed.

  She leaned back in her seat and gazed out at the Deep Dark around them. The hot coffee grounded her and wafted moist air across her face as she held the cup in both hands in front of her chin. Her mind sorted through the various steps that brought them to knocking on Verkol Kondur’s door. She had an idea how the incident might have happened but it would have required somebody from outside the ship to compromise her systems.

  She leaned forward again and opened the ship’s system log instead of the navigation log. She scrolled back through the encounter time frame. She searched for the command that released the system overrides on the jump drive.

  Key not found.

  “That can’t be right,” she muttered.

  She reran the search to look for the command to restore the override and found it immediately. Scrolling back, she found no other system log entries after the main system power-up at Newmar Orbital until the entry showing the restored overrides. She scrolled back in the log. The time stamps showed big gaps in time
between visits. Few of her visits lately had been more than routine maintenance. She’d been so busy with school and graduation there hadn’t been time to take the ship out for a spin. She kept scrolling looking for the last time she’d left the station.

  When she found it, the log looked normal. Nothing about the process stood out as odd. System power-up. Engines on standby. Station-ties released. She checked the navigation log entry for the time and saw her request for departure clearance and the subsequent granting of same. The next significant change to the system log came when she’d slaved her tablet to the engineering console displays. She nodded to herself. She’d been tuning the fuel mixture back in engineering and used her tablet to track the minute changes as she made the final adjustments.

  She popped the log back to the top, displaying the most current entries, and sat back in her couch. The system log showed nothing between initial power-up and the time she replaced the system overrides.

  She’d seen this kind of thing before, but only in training simulations—and the knowledge put a cold seed of doubt in her belly.

  A window bipped open on her pilot’s console. She sat down and keyed the acknowledgment.

  The message opened in a separate window to show a standard docking assignment, an approach protocol string, a frequency designator, and a single line of text. “Welcome to Dark Knight.”

  “At least I understand this,” Natalya said. She keyed the receipt and sat back in her couch.

  She transferred the docking protocol to her navigational computer and kicked it on. A countdown timer popped up and started ticking down. Fourteen stans before the automated course corrections. The annotations said they’d dock ten stans later, more or less.

  That gave her plenty of time to dig around in the innards of the ship’s systems to see if any simulator code still remained. Somebody went to a lot of trouble to convince her to run. She couldn’t help but wonder who and why. One thing she knew for sure. Her roommate—her friend—had a lot to answer for when she woke up.

  Chapter 5

  Dark Knight: 2363, May 26

  The navigation timer ticked down to zero and the ship’s system kicked into the next stage of the course. The plotter showed Natalya the estimated course along with some navigation notes on local traffic control. The ship rumbled as the kickers provided the tiniest bit of thrust to start slowing them. She eyed the readouts and nodded to herself.